The Best Birthday Present Ever
by DelMarch
Summary: Yumichika is badly sick and Ikkaku is fighting to keep him alive. Set in my past!universe between "Safety" and "What's In A Name?" Friendship, angst, hurt/comfort, a bit of tragedy on the side, and a big dose of shameless fluff. Happy birthday, Ikkaku!


A/N:

* This story is set in my past!universe, between "Safety" and "What's In A Name?" It might not make a lot of sense to you if you haven't at least read "Safety". Sorry for that.

* You know you're doing NaNoWriMo wrong when the unrelated fic you wrote in a day and a half ends up being longer than the entirety of what you wrote for NaNoWriMo in 9 days...

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Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or anything related to it.

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The Best Birthday Present Ever

"Come on, kid, pull through already."

Ikkaku's chest tightened painfully once more as he ran a wet cloth yet again across Yumichika's forehead.

How long had it been by now? One week, ten days, maybe even two weeks? Ikkaku had lost track of time quite a while ago, busy as he was trying to keep the kid's fever down and to get some much-needed liquid to slip past his lips and stay in his stomach. It did not help either that Yumichika had long stopped having a sleeping rhythm of any kind, but just spent his days and nights alike drifting in and out of consciousness; Ikkaku had taken to simply dozing off whenever Yumichika was in one of his comatose phases, with no care for what hour of the day it might be.

"Ih... ahu..."

Ikkaku winced as he heard his name barely making it out of the kid's dry and inflamed throat. His hands twitched as another fit of painful, deep coughing followed this pathetic attempt at speaking. His jaws clenched as he listened to Yumichika gasping for air in short, fast, hissy fits.

He waited until the little body had stopped shaking before he dared disturb the boy again.

"Yumichika?"

The kid's eyes slowly half-opened, and Ikkaku cursed inwardly as he noted that they were still as glassy as ever. He called out again, softly but firmly:

"Yumichika."

Sluggishly, the purple eyes turned towards him, though they did not quite manage to focus on him, but that was enough: Ikkaku was satisfied that Yumichika could hear him. For the umpteenth time in the last weeks, he held up a cup of tea and explained:

"You need to drink some more."

The tired eyes closed and re-opened; Yumichika understood and agreed. Carefully, Ikkaku slipped one hand under the boy's head and lifted it from the makeshift sleeping mat; he cautiously brought the cup down to the parched lips and tilted it while praying that this time everything would go just fine. Please, let the tea go down the right way and not cause another coughing fit, and please let it stay nicely in the stomach and not prompt another one of those violent and pointless vomiting episodes.

Yumichika had not eaten in days, there was absolutely nothing left for him to be sick about anymore, and yet his stomach still went on random convulsing bouts every now and then - and Ikkaku positively _hated_ those spells. He hated the helplessness he felt as he was forced to sit and watch the boy's body seize up and double over, and listen to the dreadful heaving sounds and the subsequent desperate gasping for air that always followed. He hated those times almost as much as he abhorred the monstrous, horrible sensation of sheer powerlessness and uselessness that took him over every time he heard the boy moan in pain or call out his name in that desperate tone that begged Ikkaku to do something, anything, to relieve the torment the kid was going through.

It was not like Ikkaku was not trying. He had done and was still doing everything he could think of, everything he knew how to. As soon as he had realised that Yumichika had fallen victim to the epidemic that was plaguing the district, Ikkaku had gone straight to the healer's, bought as much herbs and medicine as he could afford, and religiously listened to every bit of advice the old woman had given him. Then he had carried the boy to a more rural part of the district, away from other people and additional sources of infection. He had built a shelter, small and shabby at first, but growing more sturdy with each day that they spent there and that Ikkaku worked on it. It was ugly to look at, but it kept the elements out quite nicely, which was all Ikkaku asked of it in this beginning of November. A small fire had completed the preparations and soon Ikkaku had been ready to face a few days of nursing the kid back to health.

Or so he had thought. Sure, physically and materially, he was as prepared as he could be with his limited means: he had food, shelter, medicine, blankets, and there was plenty of dead wood around the hut to feed the fire with, and a river nearby as a source of water. It was just a matter of outlasting the illness, and Ikkaku had more than enough endurance for that.

What he had not counted on was the psychologically debilitating effect this nursing would soon have on him. Erratic sleep schedules were not a problem for his body, but waking up every few hours to the sound of Yumichika having another seizure of some kind or calling out to him in pain was another matter altogether. Ikkaku would not admit to it to anyone, but it was _killing_ him inside to see his fierce little fighter reduced to such a heap of sick, helpless misery. He knew better than anyone else just how irritatingly proud the boy could be, and how he would constantly refuse to acknowledge his limits, weaknesses and hurts until his body betrayed him and forced him to face them; it was thus a heartbreaking sign of how badly he must be feeling that he should allow whimpers and groans to pass his lips so often, and that he should have stopped trying to do anything for himself many days ago already.

He had tried to hide it when the first symptoms of the illness had come over him. He had tried to cover the dizziness under excuses of lack of rest and clumsiness. He had attempted to explain the shivers and the sneezing away as a reaction to the cold temperatures that the advancing autumn was bringing. Even his flushed cheeks and his steadily rising temperature, had been waved away as the natural consequences of physical exertion.

Ikkaku had not bothered to contradict him on any of those points: he knew how anxious the boy always felt whenever Ikkaku had to spend an inordinate amount of money on him. They had been together for a good couple of years by now, but Yumichika still instinctively reverted to his old paranoid ways when Ikkaku insisted on buying him things he considered to be too expensive or unnecessary, whether it be a new pair of pants to face the upcoming winter or an old book of fairytales he had been staring at while Ikkaku had been replenishing their stock of dry food at the market. Ikkaku could not and did not blame him, because he knew exactly why Yumichika reacted that way, but he also never let him get away with it. He simply bought the stuff anyway, forced it in the kid's hands, and waited for him to realise once again that no, he was not going to be asked to pay for it in any way.

Living with Yumichika was like a constant battle, but Ikkaku did not mind. He was often baffled, and he still got irritated sometimes, but he always remembered through it all that even if the boy still gave in to his mistrusting reflexes at times, he also consistently trusted Ikkaku, day after day, in the ways that truly mattered. He did not jump anymore when Ikkaku touched him without warning him, he did not panic anymore when they went to sleep huddled close together under their one blanket, and he did not systematically assume anymore that he had done something wrong whenever Ikkaku looked troubled. As far as Ikkaku was concerned, those were the things that were really important; he could and would wait patiently for the last painfully acquired reflexes from Yumichika's past life to disappear on their own.

That was why he had not shown his irritation when he had realised that Yumichika had done a very stupid thing by pretending not to be sick. He had not asked how long the boy had kept it a secret, how much time they had lost in getting him to a doctor; it would have been pointless, and it was too late anyway. Instead, he had just asked the first person they had met for the way to the nearest good healer, and he had studiously ignored the way the kid's face had fallen.

The healer had immediately confirmed that Yumichika was suffering from the same ailment that had struck so many in this district and the neighbouring ones, and Ikkaku's heart had squeezed for the shortest of moments: the epidemic was _deadly_. The rumours had it that up to half of those afflicted did not survive - and the children were the prime victims - but Ikkaku decided there and then that Yumichika would not be one of them.

Unfortunately, several days, maybe up to two weeks later now, it was starting to look like he might end up losing this battle. Yumichika was growing weaker all the time; the lack of food and adequate rest, the high fever, and the ever-present threat of dehydration were steadily depleting his little body's strength. Ikkaku was still faithfully feeding him all the herbs and medicine the healer had prescribed, but they did not seem to be working. It was a constant struggle to keep his temperature to acceptable levels, and the coughing fits seemed to be increasing in intensity and frequency no matter what Ikkaku did to stop them.

"... ha... hu..."

Yumichika was whispering, calling out to him in his sleep again, and Ikkaku felt like screaming. What was he supposed to do!? What _could_ he do!?

In near-despair, he brought his hand down to the little face and let his fingers brush lightly against the boy's forehead, cheekbone and jawline. The skin was hot and papery to the touch, and even in the flickering, orange glow of the fire, it looked far too grey for comfort. The long black hair, once shiny and silky, was now matted and tangled with sweat; Ikkaku groaned as he tried to run his hand in it and his fingers got caught in the knots. He would have to spend at least a good hour slowly and carefully combing them out once this was all over...

_If_ this ever ended in a good way, of course. How long was it still going to last? How long could Yumichika's body hold on before it gave up? Ikkaku did not know, and the uncertainty was putting him on constant edge. He was a man of action, he needed to be _doing_ something, something more than just repeatedly wetting cloths in cold water and endlessly dragging them over an ever-thinning body racked with feverish shivers and exhausting coughing fits...

He lost it when Yumichika called out yet again to him. He could not take it anymore. He could not stand to stay one more minute in this miserable shack, helplessly watching the only person he cared about inch ever closer to death. He could not. It was irresponsible of him, he knew it, but he needed to leave that place, he needed a lot of fresh air, both literally and metaphorically, he needed to move, walk, run, _do_ something.

He grabbed the bag, slung it over his shoulders and slipped his sword into his belt, before swiftly but quietly leaving the hut. He took some time to camouflage the low shelter under dead leaves and broken tree branches - they would not hide it to anything passing close by, but hopefully they would keep it well hidden enough from the eyes of someone looking this way from afar. And then, with a wonderful feeling of liberation in his heart, he started to run, as fast as he could, in the direction opposite from where he and the boy had originally come from - he definitely did not want to revisit areas he had been in with Yumichika.

He quickly hit another urban part and he had to slow down to avoid knocking people over, but at least he could walk unhindered. He kept looking around him as he went, making sure that he would be able to find his way back and maybe, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, looking for some miraculous solution to his problems.

Judging from the sights around him, though, the people here had no better idea of how to deal with the epidemic as any of those he had met earlier. It was the same horrible spectacle here as it had been there: sick people sitting or lying prostrate everywhere, dead bodies wrapped in sheets being carried away to the local burning pit, sounds of coughing and retching and wailing snaking out of every door, window, nook and cranny... The epidemic was not relenting, and the air was heavy with despair, fear and horror.

Ikkaku passed a herbalist's shop and was not surprised by the long line of customers waiting patiently outside of it. Herbs and medicine did not work very well, but they were all the people in this dirt-poor district could use, so use them they would - even if, by the look of it, some of them had to choose between buying medicine and buying food. Ikkaku understood, though: what was the point of keeping yourself alive, if you lost the ones you cared about?

His thoughts wandered back to Yumichika. He would go back to him tonight, but what would he find? How would he react if...? He shook his head: he must not think that way. It was rather superstitious of course, but maybe if he did not think of it, it would not happen? Funny, really, how you could get attached to a perfect stranger so quickly... And how the future, and the world itself, suddenly seemed grey and dull and pointless without that one person in it...

Ikkaku sighed and looked around him again; he needed to pay more attention to where he was going. He could not afford to get the slightest bit lost, not today, not now. The streets here were more deserted; that was probably because there were no shops around, only houses that looked slightly less shabby than those he had walked by before. There were still a few people sitting or lying, unmoving, here and there, but the overall impression was not as overwhelmingly oppressive as in other parts of the district.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a slight, small figure slink unsteadily around a corner. He turned his head to take a better look at the short and skinny young woman silently hugging the walls on the other side of the street. She was carrying some sort of bundle in her arms, which she deposited carefully on the doorstep of the largest house around. She remained kneeling next to it for a few seconds, before rapping loudly on the door frame and running away. As she flew precariously past Ikkaku, he clearly saw tears shimmering on her pale cheeks, and he heard the tell-tale painful rattling in her breath. In one moment she was gone, and he turned his head again towards the house. A woman in plain dark robes opened the door, looked around and was about to close the door again when she noticed the bundle at her feet. With a yelp of surprise, she quickly knelt down and gathered the small package before rushing back inside.

Ikkaku started walking again, but the look in the young woman's huge eyes haunted him. She had given up hope. She was filled with many things - desperation, anguish, pain... - but she had lost all will to fight. Even though she had the best reason in the world to keep going - a baby -, she had still been crushed by the combined weights of life in Rukongai's poorer districts, and that cruel, unrelenting epidemic. He did not bother even trying to blame her: who was he to know what she had gone through? She was clearly sick, she probably thought she had no choice: should she die, that baby would be without a home, without a protector...

With a shock, he noticed just how easy it was for him to understand her. This was not normal: empathy and sympathy had never been his strong points. If he could slip into her mindset so effortlessly, then it could mean only one thing: he was getting there too. He too was letting the frustration and uncertainty of the situation erode his resolve, bit by bit. He too was becoming willing to sacrifice a potential happy future just for the sake of ending the torture now. And that was not right.

Turning on the spot, he rushed back the way he had come. He would go back to Yumichika _now_, and he would sit through this damn illness, no matter what it took. If he lost the battle in the end, then he would lose it, but he would fight the inevitable every inch of the way. That was who he was, that was how he wanted to live his life.

As he passed the herbalist's office, he noticed that the queue outside was almost gone. He hesitated; was it worth the wasted time? Obviously, whatever herbs they were using around here did not work any better than the ones he already had... Still, he could not shake the feeling that he should check, that he should make sure they did not have something here that he had not tried yet.

Waiting patiently in line was a chore, but at least he had things to look at, and people to listen to. The customers and the shop owners were all talking to one another, in hushed, grave tones. They exchanged tips about how to fight the fever, rumours about how the plague was spreading to other districts, and news about who else had died lately. Nobody in the store seemed to be sick, and yet it was like attending a funeral - several funerals at once, in fact.

"... You take this for now, and you come back to see me in three days, on the 12th."

Ikkaku's ears perked up as his brain unconsciously did the maths. Three days, the 12th? Then that meant... His voice was hoarse when he interrupted one of the shop attendants as she was giving instructions to the customer before him:

"Is today the 9th?"

She jumped a bit, and looked at him with confused eyes. He insisted:

"The 9th of November?"

She hesitated before nodding, and Ikkaku felt the world closing down on him. Blood rushed to his head and his legs became weak; he left the shop as fast as he could on his now-unsteady feet, all the while fighting an overwhelming wave of nausea down. Walking was quickly becoming a hazardous venture, but he had no choice: he had to go back to Yumichika, NOW.

November 9. It could not be. Not today. Not _today_. His mind screamed in disbelief even as he heard himself snort in sarcasm. Of _course _it would be today. He should have known, he should have known all along. November 9, most accursed day of all of them bloody days...

Other people celebrated their birthday, other people held parties with their friends and families on their birthday, and had sake and nice food. But not Madarame Ikkaku. How could he? How could he rejoice on _that_ day?

Every single day of his childhood had been a piece of hell on Earth, but his birthday was always the worst day of the year. His father had never needed any excuse to get violent towards his wife and kids, but he still seemed to consider his children's birthdays to be a particularly perfect opportunity. _Worthless parasites... I curse the day you were born... One more year of working the skin off my back to spoil you useless leeches rotten..._ Ikkaku cringed as the memory of his father's drunken shouts came back to him, along with the ghostly remembrance of the hits and lashes that often accompanied them.

He had thought he had left all of this behind him when he had left his family, but he had quickly found out that he had been wrong. Even though his father was no longer there to ruin his "special day", that alone had not been enough to change the way he experienced it. No matter how much he tried, he could never find any pleasure in it. What was there to celebrate about being born, after all? Everyone was born, that was no accomplishment, no special feat. At least, those who believed that which day you were born on had an influence on who you were and what you would turn out to be had a reason to rejoice if they thought they had been born on a particularly auspicious day. Ikkaku, though, could not bring himself to believe those things, because they made no sense to him: his father would have hated him just as much, and made his life just as miserable, if he had been born on any other day of the year.

As the years passed, though, and especially after he died, Ikkaku did manage to reach some kind of uneasy truce with his birthday. He would not make a fuss about it, any kind of fuss, he would just ignore it, as long as it did not call itself to his attention through some weird-ass way. This arrangement had worked quite well those last decades... until today.

Yumichika was dying. On November 9. Rage - blinding, impotent, futile rage - filled Ikkaku. This was not FAIR! Would his life - death, whatever - _ever_ give him a break!? Had he been such a monster in some previous life that he deserved to be tortured like that??

He ran, ran as fast as his wobbly legs and constricting chest would let him. He was running against time, against fate, against himself. He did not see a chance for him to win this race, but he refused to give up. He would not give in to despair like the young woman had done, he would not abandon the one good thing in his life in fear of what _might_ happen like she had. He would fight the demons of hell, death, fate and whatever else tooth and nail to keep that one precious thing he had accidentally stumbled upon.

Dusk was already falling when he finally reached the hut. With a sigh of relief, he noted the absence of any sign of man or beast coming this way. Quietly, he slid the makeshift door to the side and crawled inside the shelter.

It was dark and cold in there. It smelled of sickness and cold sweat and old tea. There was no movement anywhere. Ikkaku might have believed that the place was empty if not for the quiet - if a bit raspy - sound of someone breathing regularly even if a tad too fast. Relief flooded him as he realised that Yumichika was still alive - for now at least.

First things first, they needed the fire back. Ikkaku gathered the requisite items, and went to work. Soon, a warm and happy glow brightened the place. Next was tea; Ikkaku set some water to boil and while he waited, he turned his attention to Yumichika.

The boy was bundled up in his blanket, lying on his side all rolled up in a tight ball as was his habit whenever he was not feeling well. He _seemed_ to look a bit better, his skin not as grey, the shadows under his eyes not as dark and large, though all of this was probably just a trick of the light. Ikkaku brought his hand down to the little forehead to check on his temperature, and jumped when the purple eyes snapped wide open.

"Ik... Ikkaku?"

The kid's voice was croaky and unsure, but it was not anymore that thin wailing wisp of a voice that it had been those last weeks. Ikkaku could hardly believe his eyes and ears, and his own voice shook a bit when he asked:

"Yumichika? How... How are you doing, kid?"

A powerful emotion he could not be bothered to identify rushed over him as he watched the boy push himself on an elbow and struggle to sit up. This was not happening, it was too good to be true...

His hands were trembling when he reached out to help. The mixed messages his fingers sent his brain were confusing, but overall, he could see without a doubt that things had definitely taken a turn for the better in his absence. Yumichika's little body had never been so thin, but his skin was no longer burning hot, and there was strength of will, if not strength of muscle, in the limbs again.

Yumichika panted for a few moments after managing to sit up, but his voice was calm and assured enough when he finally answered:

"I'm... I'm okay... I guess."

He did cough a little just then, and Ikkaku's heart dropped just a tiny bit, until he realised that this cough sounded much more like an almost-normal throat-clearing cough than like the nerve-racking fits that had taken the boy over several times a day during his illness.

"What... What happened?"

Yumichika seemed deeply confused as he was looking around him, taking in the hut, the fire and his own position under the blanket. Ikkaku scowled and grumbled:

"Ya were sick, remember?"

The kid frowned, until a hint of recognition passed in his eyes, and a wary expression settled on his face even as his shoulders hunched.

"... I'm sorry."

Ikkaku stared, dumbstruck. _Sorry_!? Sorry for what?? Sorry for being alive and almost well when Ikkaku thought he was going to die? Sorry for pulling through when it was all Ikkaku had wanted for so many days now? What in Soul Society was there to be sorry about!?

"Che..."

Scowling even more deeply, Ikkaku sat down on the floor next to Yumichika, pulled him into his lap, wrapped his arms tightly around him, and held him in as crushing an embrace as he dared.

_Sorry._

Seriously.

What was there to be sorry for giving Ikkaku his first real birthday present _ever_?

His scowl softened as he felt Yumichika relax against his chest. Here he was, that darn, proud, stupid kid, the best thing life had ever given Ikkaku, and he was going to _live_...

From now on, Madarame Ikkaku would most definitely have something to celebrate on that damn November 9...

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The End.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, IKKAKU!!


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